


lightbringer

by Bluebox_Parchment



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle of Winterfell, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Whump, these two make me soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluebox_Parchment/pseuds/Bluebox_Parchment
Summary: Bran looks serene, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 'Lightbringer.'Her heart pounds against her rib cage. There can be no doubt that Bran offers those words as a title for her and her alone. No longer Arya Stark. No longer No One. Now the flaming sword that would be wielded by the Prince That Was Promised.[in which Arya can't process everything that has happened and Gendry looks after her and together they are soft]





	lightbringer

**Author's Note:**

> So, my knowledge of the world of ASOIAF is GOT and GOT alone. Forgive any inaccuracies or misspellings or wonky grammar. This is completely un-beta'd. But yolo.  
> These two make me weak and I'm not ready to be crushed by how their story ends (if I expect the worst, nothing bad can hurt me). So for now, enjoy some post-battle whump.

The snow is hard beneath her feet, scuffed away in places where Theon had felled wight after wight. Shards of ice are scattered around her like a hundred thousand diamonds. Her throat hurts, burns with a cold that sinks to her core. Someone is breathing heavily in her ear, but after several moments she realises that the sound is coming from her own lungs. 

She tilts her eyes up to look at Bran. He's not really her little brother any longer, she thinks. She remembers the curious, fearless little boy he had been when they were children, chasing one another through the hallways, stealing food from the kitchens. He looks at her fondly, the ghost of his old self somewhere within that mind full of all things.

'Did it work?' she hears herself asking. She doesn't know why. The fact the creature had shattered when she plunged the dagger into him felt like confirmation enough. But she needs to know for certain.

'It did.' Bran looks serene, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 'Lightbringer.'

Her heart pounds against her rib cage. There can be no doubt that Bran offers those words as a title for her and her alone. No longer Arya Stark. No longer No One. Now the flaming sword that would be wielded by the Prince That Was Promised.

She feels hemmed in, caged, and she scrambles backwards, away from Bran, away from the ring of slaughtered Iron Born and Karstarks, away from Theon's glassy eyes, and from the Godswood, rushing away from the dead.

~*~

Arya listens as they call for her, but she keeps herself tucked into the corner, holding his pillow to her chest as though it could be some sort of shield. ( _she is nothing but a weapon now. a sharpened tool of war and death. she does not need protection. she is the knife that cuts the throats of death itself_.)

She wishes they would stop. Just let her fade away into the shadows of the forge until she becomes one with the walls of the place. ( _just another weapon, crafted by his hands. worked on and folded out of flame and quenched in oil_.) Of course he's the one that finds her.

To his credit, Gendry doesn't look surprised to find her huddled up upon his bed. He looks a state; filth caked on every exposed piece of skin, numerous gashes across the backs of his hands and face, bruises bloodying across his throat. She doubts she looks any better. She can still feel the blood upon her brow moving sluggishly with every movement she makes.

He strides across to her and crouches on the floor. She watches his hands tremble out in front of her. He wants to touch her but he can't seem to figure out where. ( _what part will hurt him least. what part would break such a fine piece of weaponry_.) 'Arya?' he asks tentatively, finally placing a calloused hand atop her own. 'Arya, you're as cold as ice.' He reaches under the bed and pulls out a fur cloak, draping it around her like one might do in a Godswood. ( _his words rattle in her head. ice._ ice _. her father's sword. that was all she was now_.)

She closes her eyes, can't bear to look at him any longer. Can't bear to see the concern flittering behind his blue eyes. ( _blue eyes that you will shut forever._ ) She's not aware that she's crying until those hands cradle her face and his thumbs brush the tears away, smudging them through muck and blood. 'You're safe now,' he tells her. ( _she isn't anything. a sword can neither be safe or in danger. she is an instrument of death that feels nothing_.) His fingers trail down, he goes to push her hair back from where it has come loose of the braids she had plaited it into prior to battle (pretty filigree for the hilt.) but his hands still. 'Arya?' Tentatively his finger tips skim across her throat. The chill deep in her bones radiates from the point where the Night King had grabbed her, tried to squeeze the life right out of her. 'It was you.' It's not a question. 'You're the one that killed him.' His eye flick to the empty sheath that had held the dagger. Absently, she can't remember where it is. 'I heard your sister asking Jon -' he trails off.

She finally looks at him then, her heart beating in her chest. A violent drum. ( _Gendry knows how to hit steel to make it sing. Does he know his words are doing the same to her heart?_ ) 'Don't-' her voice is a rasp. It hurts to force the words out. She sounds like she's been screaming. She'd think maybe she had if it wasn't for the fact only Gendry had found her. 'Don't tell anyone.'

He gives her a curt nod and moves to sit on the bed beside her. Carefully, he teases the pillow from out of her grasp and pulls her into his arms. ( _weapons don't deserve such kindness_.) Part of her wants to run away, but she knows her legs won't take her a step further than the door. 'Of course not, mi'lady,' he whispers into her hair.

A strange strangled noise escapes her, half sob, half laugh. She will never be a lady. His grip on her is tight, she can feel the beat of his heart under his ribs, life pulsing away in his neck. He is warm and good and kind and she deserves none of it. She is none of those things any longer. She closes her eyes, wishing for only a moment to once again be Arya, to hear him whisper her name with such care and longing, for him to devour her with his eyes and his tongue and his body.

Exhaustion hits her like a bruising wave, the darkness pulling her under like a rip tide. She's vaguely aware of him saying her name, over and over, with growing concern, but it becomes a lilting mantra like the water breaking across the shore.

~*~

Consciousness eludes her for a long time. She catches snippets when she's on the fringes of wakefulness; Gendry's half-mad, _I'm not letting anyone take me away from my family ever again_ ; Jon and Sansa bickering about the Night King; Ser Davos' voice, _c'mon lad, you're no use to anyone like this_ ; the Dragon Queen asking, _any change_? and Jon's gruff response of, _none_.

 ~*~

When she does finally wake, it's to the sound of gentle snoring to her left, and the crack of splitting wood as fire curls around it. She glances over towards the snoring and catches sight of Gendry. He's slumped in an old chair, his head lulling forwards onto his chest. She watches him for a while, watches the rise and fall of his chest and a curl of relief unfolds in her gut. He really is alive.

He gives a particularly loud grunt and startles himself awake, and when his eyes catch sight of her, his face breaks into a smile as bright as sunlight on snow. 'Arya,' he says, his own relief etched into the syllables of her name. He's beside her in a fluid movement, his hands warm against her skin, brushing her hair from her face.

She pushes herself up slightly, and he helps her, propping pillows around her. She'd complain about his fussing but she doesn't have the energy. Someone had bathed her and changed her clothes into a soft old night gown she thinks may have once been Sansa's. A dark burn in the shape of a hand print blemishes the skin of her arm and she worries, absently, if there is one to match around her throat. Her fingers go to it reflexively. His eyes watch her movements, but he doesn't say anything, just continues to card a hand through her hair.

'You look like shit,' she tells him. Her voice is still raspy, her throat dry as bone.

He laughs, scrubs a hand down his face, and gets up from his perch on the side of her bed. He crosses the room and pours out a cup of water, handing it back to her silently.

In all fairness, he doesn't look as bad as he had last time. He's clean too, and some of the worse cuts on him have been stitched neatly, but bloody purple bruises cover him, and there are dark circles under his eyes. 'Doubt I look any better,' she says finally.

He leans forwards and kisses her forehead, careful to avoid the cut above her right eye. Again, she lets him fuss without complaint, closing her eyes and resting her forehead to his. 'Do they know? That it was me?'

'Some of them.'

'Did you tell them?'

'You asked me not to.' His breath tickles her cheeks, he's so close she feels his eyelashes flutter.

'Thank you.'

'You're welcome, mi'lady.'

She pulls away from him and teases, 'Don't start that again, my lord.' A beat. 'Or perhaps that should be my prince?' He swallows thickly. 'My king?'

'Arya -' She swoops forwards and kisses him, revelling in the startled gasp she illicits from him. She remembers the way his hands had scrambled against her clothes before the battle, removing every layer until those calloused fingers had worked on her instead. But now he is gentle. There is no ferocity in the way he kisses her this time, no need to devour, to claim, no rush before certain death. Now his kisses are soft and slow, his touches feather-light in spite of the way she tries to take back control.

She tries to dig in her nails, tries to bite his bottom lip between her teeth, everything is a battle, for battle is all she's ever truly known. But he doesn't allow her the purchase, just kisses her with so much tenderness and adoration she feels flayed open. She is an exposed nerve, feeling too much of everything. She remembers watching him leave, taking a little piece of her with him. She remembers seeing Rob's body with Greywind's head stitched atop it and deciding she wouldn't be Arya Stark any longer. She is No One, she is Death, she is Lightbringer; a weapon and nothing more.

She pulls away and moves out from his touch. He looks at her with confusion and a fraction of hurt. 'You can't,' she tells him, her hand over his heart, pushing him away.

He's quiet for a minute, his eyes roving over her face, a crease across his brow. She can't bare to look at him. 'Why not?' he asks her finally.

'You don't know the things I've done. What I've become. If you did, you wouldn't want to look at me, let alone touch me.'

'I know you're fierce,' he says, absently scratching at a stitch on his right arm. 'You're loyal.'

'And I'm violent.'

His hand slides under the blankets and settles across the scars on her hip. He knows where they are, though they are currently hidden. 'Aye, that too.' He leans forwards and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. 'You're passionate and diligent.' His next kiss is lower, on the hollow of her throat. It sends a shiver down her spine. 'Generous. Protective.' Each word is punctured by a lingering kiss. And for a moment she wants to lose herself to the feeling, ignore that part of herself that was twisted and changed in the House of Black and White.

'I've killed people,' she says, expecting his ministrations to draw to an abrupt halt. They don't.

'So have I.'

'But-'

He groans, rests his forehead against hers once more. 'Arya.' He tangles his fingers through her hair, brushes his nose against hers. 'Do you trust me?'

'You're one of the only people I do.' Weapons don't feel, don't ache. They don't feel vulnerability.

'I know you're hurting right now,' he tells her simply. 'Not physically,' he adds, 'but in here.' He taps her temple, ghosts a finger across her chest. 'I know I can't fix it with my love alone.'

Involuntarily, Arya captures his mouth with her lips. She had always hated the girls that swooned at the love of a boy, but for the first time in a long time, something akin to calm has come over her. 'You're not just violence and death, Arya. Not to me. Not to your brothers and sister. Your family.'

'Okay.' Her voice is barely a whisper. She doesn't believe him, not yet. But she does trust him. She knows he would never lie to her.

In spite of herself, she yawns widely.

Gendry laughs and kisses her forehead. 'Rest.'

'Done a lot of that already.'

'Not enough. And if I let you out of this room, your sister might well have me whipped.'

She settles back against the pillows. 'She wouldn't dare.' She takes hold of his hand, fingers slotting between his. She doesn't have to utter the childish, 'Don't leave me,' that dances on the tip of her tongue. He raises their joined hands to his lips, and kisses her softly. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he tells her, and she knows that he won't.


End file.
